Raising Flowers and Skids

We awoke in our darkened cell, still pretty excited to be in NYC.

I have been a few times, as had Robbie (although he didn’t see much the other times he was there is appears) – but like everything else, doing it for the first time together makes it the best:))

The weather outside was still pretty yucky. It was cold and misty. We had to use the umbrella we had bought the night before.  We grabbed a quick snack for breakfast and enjoyed Times Square’s hustle and bustle. The mormon.org campaign went a little crazy with their Christmas ads – but I gotta say, I loved it. I pointed it out to Rob, however right underneath was some video of half naked ladies, so he wondered why I was pointing it out! I thought it’s kind of ironic to have that underwear video under the mormon.org ads!

We purchased a hop on hop off bus ticket. Found a great deal. Or so we thought. The one we bought you couldn’t go inside the bus at all. I mean at ALL.

So we braved the cold and misty weather with some Australians, and off we went doing the downtown loop. We passed all the important parts of the city (so THEY say) and got some rain drop photos.

We certainly know where we want to return the next time we do an impromptu trip!

After a two hour freezing our butts off tour, we ended back up at Times Square area and made our way to John’s Pizzeria for some thin crust pizza.

Once you’ve been to Italy, pizza is never the same, but the restaurant was warm and the pizza was not so bad. We had an enjoyable lunch over a “pitcher of soda pop” (so American) and Martguerita pizza.

After lunch we did a little shopping. Gotta do some shopping when in New York. Unfortunately, right after Christmas the bank account is a little low, so we went to the HUGE Forever 21 store and got some goods that won’t last long, but were a super bargain and were super cute.

Shopping warmed us up enough to head back to our hotel to drop our loot, and then wander the streets.

We meandered along 5th Avenue, checked out the insane crowds at Rockefeller Centre (saw the pretty tree), braced ourselves for the few seconds we lasted in The American Girl store, gazed at some beautiful cathedral ceilings, gawked at the Christmas lights, and laughed at the lines outside FAO Schwartz and The Apple Store. We also pined away at the Plaza Hotel, before heading across the street to Central Park.

So cheesy as it may be, we thought about a carriage ride. But a nice young man convinced us of taking an hour long rick saw tour through the park. Let me tell you, it was my highlight of the day.

He took us through the park and pointed out the famous skating rink, boat house, fountains, bridges, strawberry fields; ya know, all that movie stuff that I love to see:)

We were warm under blankets, and got to take some great pictures as the sun was setting over the city. Bea-u -ti-ful:)

We headed back to our hotel, but not before stopping for some shopping again (new shoes for Robbie) and then had a quick snooze before we headed up to Hell’s Kitchen area and enjoyed dinner at a place called Becco (that I had been to previously with Larissa when I was in NYC with her back in 2004).

Another successful day. Love NYC. Love being there with Robbie McHottie.